In a rapidly changing world, with new horizons and challenges that expand the circle of human activity in every direction, an intense need emerges to human scientific and research efforts that contribute to framing the world’s renaissance and determine its perceptions, in addition to facing the problems and obstacles that encounter them, relying almost entirely on official institutions instead of the individuals’ social contribution.
Hence was the emergence of endowments, both doctrinally and historically, as a component of development in the Islamic society. Practically, the original purpose of endowments was to meet the need of support civil society and it kept developing with the expanding circle of realistic requirements. Endowments then gained Islamic sanctity and immunity through the scholars’ deciding that “Endowments condition is just like a legislator’s stipulation”.
In the context of the foregoing, the decision was made to establish “Nohoudh Endowment for Development Studies”, where the name “Nohoudah” was chosen to reflect the genuine purpose and role endowments should undertake in realizing the renaissance of the community, stemming from the existing belief that human development, with is various aspects, is the real threshold to the process of development and the liberty from stages of underdevelopment to start addressing its problems.
Linguistically, “Nohoudh ” was adopted for being a term that expresses the act of getting up to make a change towards a better reality. Out of this idea, Nohoudh Endowment focuses in its objectives on paying attention to the programs, research, and developmental studies as one method of achieving society’s development and renaissance.
With this vision Nohoudh Endowment for Development Studies has been established on the 5th of June 1996 upon the registration of the first Judicial deed, depositing and documenting the same at the Legal Authentication Department in Kuwait, by Al-Zumai family represented by “Dr. Ali Fahd Al-Zumai” 
as a caretaker to the endowment. Since then, the objectives and capital of the endowment have been updated in the 14th of February 2008 and then in the 23rd of June 2010. Consequently, in the 28th of April 2014, the deed of establishment has been updated to align with the endowment’s objectives and capital increase.